Interesting discussion :)
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 3:01 AM, Grant Bowman<grantbow at gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert Wall
... who, for what it's worth, is with Rick on this one.
I've handed out OpenOffice.org CDs with Windows and OS X [1] binaries
to high school students and various other people for a while now, and
have pushed Firefox when I can. Even when I explain the topic of free
software and open source to these users, they express little to no
interest in switching to Linux. Personally, I feel OpenOffice.org is
important to tide the spread of .docx and other similar crap, and
Firefox adoption makes designing websites easier and more
standardized, hence me distributing them [2]. However, the argument
that "use of open source on [non-free operating system] increases the
chance that users will switch to [free operating system]" isn't true
in my experience.
On the other hand, I've been hearing recently that some students in my
city are using Ubuntu LiveCDs to bypass Windows' filesystem security
so they can copy over (non-free) games and play them on Windows.
Unfortunately, that's only led to a bunch of teachers and
administrative staff associating Ubuntu users with rule-breaking
people...
[1] Which, by the way, is just as bad as Windows, despite its somewhat
free heritage, because of Apple Computer's distinctly proprietary
attitude.
[2] personally. I agree it's outside of the scope of LUGs to do so.
--
Robert Wall <robertlikesturtles at gmail.com>
OpenPGP key: 0x0CBC1491 | see http://rww.name/rsaswitch.txt
Webpage: http://rww.name/